Living Dead Girl
by Varia Lectio
Summary: True love conquers all... even death. When the crippled Rebecca Nightrod dies, Nathan Explosion must find a way to bring her back from the dead with the most metal black magic ritual ever! An alternate-universe ending for "Girlfriendklok". Happy Halloween


_**Living Dead Girl**_

**Rating:** R for language, and for depending on how squicky you find this...

**Summary:** True love conquers all... even death. An alternate-universe ending for "Girlfriendklok", inspired in equal portions by "Life Support" by _**twilightspeaks**_ and Rob Zombie's song "Living Dead Girl". Happy Halloween, folks!

**Pairing:** Natebecca as you've never seen it before.

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_"Who is this irresistible creature who has an insatiable love for the dead?"_

She was gone.

Nathan sat there by her bedside, knuckling his forehead. His eyes burned and his mouth was filled with sour spit.

_This is what you wanted, isn't it?_

It had happened as suddenly as her fateful and eventually fatal fall. She'd just fallen asleep, sunk into the deep sleep of the coma... and then hadn't woken up. It had been a quiet, peaceful death -- not what he would have expected of her. It seemed... wrong.

_This __**is**__ what you wanted._

The inner voice seemed both consoling and accusatory. No, this isn't what he'd fuckin' wanted. He hadn't wanted her dead. Rebecca was the most brutal chick he'd ever known, but even he couldn't handle her brutality; she frightened him. He'd wanted to be free of her, but at the same time, he couldn't help but admit that he'd volunteered to be her slave. He had hated it just as he had hated her, but now that she was dead he felt that there was a void in his life, a void that needed filling.

But how? She seemed irreplaceable. Would that void be forever unfilled, a gaping, bloody wound in his psyche, a gory monument to love's heartbreak?

He looked at her face, so still and cold. Pale, where it wasn't bruised and stitched. He couldn't really see very much of it, because she was so heavily bandaged. He lightly touched her cheek and smoothed some blonde hair away from her face. He could never have done that when she was alive... Rebecca would never have let him. He played with her hair for a few moments and then gave a hoarse sigh.

"Nathan..."

The soft voice made him spin around. Ofdensen stood in the doorway.

"Yeah?" Nathan grunted, fixing his face into what he hoped was a suitably hard and angry expression. That normally wasn't difficult to do but his lower lip kept threatening to give out on him like a weak leg. He had to squint very hard. Ofdensen kept going in and out of focus.

"Nathan," his manager said in a distinctly stiff and uncomfortable tone, "I just... wanted to say how sorry I am for your loss, and..." Ofdensen looked at him and then blinked, as if surprised. "Nathan, you're crying."

"What?! _Am not!_ Shut the fuck up or I'll--" A tear rolled off his jaw. Then there were more. "Oh, _shit_--"

Ofdensen came forward and hugged him, or at the least awkwardly cradled Nathan's large, shaggy head in his arms as if it were a baby. He stiffly patted Nathan's back. Nathan shuddered and stared down at Rebecca's corpse.

"She just-- died," he said, feeling even more helpless than when she had been alive, which wasn't right at all. "She was just there and then she stopped breathing and the doctor said she was... gone." He squeezed and blew a wad of warm thick snot out his nose and all over his face, where it dripped down to his lips and tasted of salt. He didn't bother to mop it up... not even with his forearm or shirt-sleeve. That was how bad he was feeling.

Ofdensen put his embroidered kerchief to Nathan's nose. "Blow." Nathan honked obediently and Ofdensen pinched the kerchief shut. The manager looked at the wad of snot for a moment, then tucked the kerchief away in a pocket. Nathan looked at him with reddened eyes and the manager shrugged. "It'll come out in the wash. Besides, it came with the suit."

"I was hopin' she'd be the ultimate girlfriend now," Nathan confessed, "and now that she's dead... Ofdensen, I dunno what the fuck I'm gonna do! I need... I need to go get drunk. _Really_ drunk. More drunk than I have ever--"

He heaved himself out of the bedside chair and staggered towards the door, head bowed, shoulders hunched.

Ofdensen's voice stopped him. "There... Nathan..."

He turned. "What?"

"Nathan... there may be a way."

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"You've _gotta_ be fuckin' _shitting_ me." Pickles folded his arms and glared at Nathan, then turned and slapped his hands against his thighs. "I'm _drunk_!" he yelled to the vaulted heights of the ceiling. "I'm drunk and I am in bed and I am asleep and this is just a nightmare I am having before I pinch myself and wake the fuck up!"

Toki slapped him.

"Owww!" Pickles yelled. He glared at Toki, who shrank back. "What the hell?"

"Yous say you need to wake up, I wakes you up," Toki said. He bit at his lip. "Looks like it not work, though."

Skwisgaar glared at Nathan. "I's thought we told yous to be breakings up with that bitch!" he snapped. "I's _thought_ we been over all this before!"

Nathan punched him. "My girlfriend just _died_, you dumbass," he said, standing over the downed Swede as if he wanted to punch him again. "We _did_ break up, because she died. This is... I dunno." He stepped back, lowered his head, and the anger went out of him. He offered Skwsigaar a hand up, which the Swede reluctantly accepted.

"She's dead," Nathan continued after a moment, "and there's the break-up. Now, I want to bring her back to life, and that's like getting back together again. See?"

Murderface looked indignant. "_Why?_"

"Because!"

Murderface sighed and shook his head. "Nathan, you poor loveschick fool. You're addicted. You're _addicted_."

Pickles grinned suddenly and began to sing under his breath. _"Gonna have to face it/you're addicted to loooove..."_

Murderface turned his viperous glare onto Pickles. "Schut it, glam-boy. We're talking about our _livesch_ here, which I thought we'd gotten back!"

Nathan stared at them, trying to will them to understand. "Guys, I... need this. When she died, I felt like shit. I couldn't do anything. I wanted her to be the ultimate girlfriend and then that was taken away. Now I have a chance. _We_ have a chance. We can do better...and not be... crappy, like last time? I dunno." He clamped his mouth shut and wiggled an index finger into his hair and stared at them and then stared at the ground and then back at them again, biting at his lower lip. He was breathless.

Murderface _hmmph_ed, crossed his arms, tapped his boot against the ground.

Nathan stared at him, silently trying to make him understand. Murderface was his oldest and best friend; surely he'd understand. Surely.

Murderface's yellow-green gaze flicked up to the ceiling. "Bird-faced band-wrecking schoul murderessch."

Nathan managed to both frown and eye-plead at the same time.

Murderface exhaled, grunted, and shook his head just a little.

Nathan's bottom lip went out as he frowned even more, but he unintentionally looked like he was going to cry. Murderface's eyes widened at that and he shook his head frantically. The thought of a _crying_ Nathan Explosion was a very uncomfortable concept to the band; it connoted things like drinking way too much and sessions with Twinkletits and Pickles going off to do Snakes 'n' Barrels and banana stickers, those small yellow addictions that could get you to do damn near anything. It seemed like women were like banana stickers, too, only they weren't small and yellow and didn't stick onto your clothing. Nothing good could come of this. Murderface cast his gaze around and seemed to see his own reluctance mirrored in the other bandmembers' faces.

Nathan was desperate. But then a line came back to him; a line from that whole stupid Shakespeare thing that he'd had had to slog through. "Y'know," he intoned, "the course of true love never did run smooth."

Murderface blinked. "What the..."

"It's _true!_ This is metal. Bringing a brutal disfigured chick back from the dead is metal. We can make it metal. This will be the most metal thing of all time, guys. It'll be the most metal love story of all time."

Skwisgaar blinked at him. "Nathans, I thinks you watch too many horrors movie."

"Ofdensen says we can do it," Nathan continued, "and I need your help."

"With whats?" Skwisgaar still looked suspicious; he rubbed at his jaw where Nathan had hit him.

"With hauling down a bunch of shit into the studio. Skwisgaar, Toki, go get some power tools. Murderface, Pickles, go with Charles and haul whatever he tells you to." Nathan turned and walked away. "I'm gonna go get Rebecca outta the morgue."

"What, and bring her to the studio?!" Pickles yelled.

"Yeah, we need some juice." Nathan replied before he was gone.

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Rebecca lay like Snow White on a bed of ice (which was refreshed every so often by a Klokateer) while Nathan and the others worked in the studio. They needed power, so they were busily re-routing everything into a console hooked to a metal table that Ofdensen had brought down from his study. The amps, the pedals, _everything_ that the studio had was being steadily rewired into that one console. The loudest and most powerful electrical musical instruments and set-up in the world was being utilized to literally wake the dead.

"Murderface, hand me that arc welder," Nathan said. Murderface did so. Nathan used the thing for a moment and then shut it off. He stepped back, took off his protective metal face mask, looked at his handiwork, and seemed pleased with what he saw. He wiped the sweat from his brow with one grime-blackened hand, smearing a greasy dark swath across his forehead, and grinned toothily at Ofdensen. "Whatcha think?"

Ofdensen nodded. "Impressive." And it was. "I never knew you were so...talented."

"Yeah." Nathan nodded. "Toki used to set up and break down the equipment before and after every show when we started... remember those days, Toki? Yeah. Pickles here knows all kinds of electrical shit and stuff. And me an' Murderface installed a sink in my parents' basement when we were kids." He nodded again. "So yeah, I'd say we're experts."

"All... all right then. I need to go get something from my office. I'll be back in a moment." And with that, their managers was gone.

Nathan turned on shaking legs and scooped Rebecca up out of the ice. Her body was stiff and wet and cold; her skin felt like wet, slick rubber. He cradled her in one arm while his other hand brushed sparkling chips of ice out of her hair. "You're gonna be okay," he said to her, though of course she couldn't hear him. He'd never said anything so... _tender_ to her before. It was new.

He laid her carefully down on the stainless steel table and fiddled with the wrappings around her body. Ofdensen had fixed a simple white gown on her and had re-wrapped all her limbs. Surgical tape covered her cuts. Her skin was as white as the dress. He had to admit, the look suited her. Also, she wasn't wearing any underthings. He liked that, too.

Ofdensen came back. Under one arm he had a strange leather book. "Move out of the way, please, Nathan." Nathan stepped back and Ofdensen set the book down and went about the business of hooking wires and lines into Rebecca's flesh. Several times Nathan had to pick her back up so that Ofdensen could wire her up. One long metal spike went into her spine just above her butt... another went into her back between her shoulder-blades... still another went into her neck vertebrae just below her head. They sank in with a crunch of gristle and cold flesh parting before slightly warmed-up and very sharp metal points. Ofdensen wheeled out an IV stand and drip bag and hooked a line into her throat, and still another in her right arm. He wheeled out a second stand with another IV bag. This one was filled with a strange blue fluid and the line attached to it ended in a long, wicked metal stiletto. Ofdensen handed him the spike and looked up at him. "Nathan, you need to drive this into her heart." He pointed to the spot. "Right there."

Nathan looked at him soberly. "Like in that movie?"

"Yes, Nathan. Just like in _Pulp Fiction._"

"Yeah, okay." Nathan raised the spike and hammered it down.

"Perfect." Ofdensen looked at him again. "Nathan... are you... are you sure you want to go through with this?"

"Hell yes. This is fuckin' _metal_, Charlie."

The manager sighed. "All right, then. She's hooked in. Assume positions."

Nathan took up his usual spot behind the microphone. Pickles mounted the drum throne and took his seat. Murderface slung his bass's strap over his shoulder, and Skwisgaar did, too. Toki, oddly, only went up to Skwisgaar. "Skwisgaar, whys can't I--"

"No, Toki, goes get your guitar and puts it on." Skwisgaar tried to shove Toki away, but the younger man wouldn't budge.

"I's wanting to press it down with you, Skwis!" Toki stared at him with big blue eyes. "_Pleeeases?_"

"Nathan," Skwisgaar grunted, "looks at this big babies. He wants to do it with me, he says." Skwisgaar rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue at Toki, who promptly imitated the gesture. The Swede snapped his tongue back behind his teeth and grimaced. "Stop copies me!"

"Oh, just let him do it!" Nathan said, not even looking at his two guitarists. He adjusted the mic and then tapped it with a finger. It was on.

Skwisgaar huffed and then said, "Fine. Gets behind me, then."

Toki cheered and slipped around behind Skwisgaar and placed his hand over Skwisgaar's picking hand, and placed his other onto the guitar's neck. He put one foot near Skwisgaar's for the pedal.

Nathan looked back at Pickles. The drummer winked and twirled his drumsticks over his head, both at the same time.

"Now, boys," Ofdensen said, "I am going to read some select passages from this book. Do _not_ interrupt me while I am doing this or the consequences will be severe."

Nathan stared at him, clearly puzzled.

"Severely bad," Ofdensen elaborated with a sigh. "For _you_."

"Oh, right then. Yeah. Wouldn't dream of it."

"Right." Ofdensen cleared his throat and opened the old leather-bound book. Nathan just had time to notice that the book had a weird face on its front cover -- it looked like a strange, wrinkled, dried-up old mask that only just barely resembled a human face -- before Ofdensen began to read in a voice that was deeper and surprisingly scarier than his normal speaking voice.

Nathan couldn't understand a word his manager was saying but he didn't dare interrupt for a translation. As Ofdensen was speaking, something strange began to happen. The monitors began to hum and crackle. The chips of ice that hadn't melted in Rebecca's old tray began to dance around in their slush. And Rebecca's long blonde hair began to blow, though there was no breeze in the room to make it move....

Ofdensen suddenly fell silent and closed the book. "Nathan!" he said. "Start it."

Nathan held up a hand, index finger raised. Pickles clicked his drumsticks together and then pounded the drums as if he was heralding in the world's apocalypse.

Nathan raised his second finger, pointing them at the sky. He lowered his head and swung his hair back and forth, not even doing it consciously but simply swaying to the hypnotic rhythm like a cobra. Murderface's bass began to grind along with the drums, complementing them. It was actually pretty seductive. Through the curtain of his hair, Nathan snuck a peek at Rebecca. The music -- and the electrical current -- was making her sway, too. Her muscles were jumping and twitching, her stiff fingers trembling and feet rattling against the iron table.

Nathan signaled again, and with no hesitation both Toki and Skwisgaar stomped on the effects pedal and slid the pick up the strings.

The Dethklok frontman stared at his dead ex-girlfriend. Shit, isomething/i was happened. A strange green light surrounded Rebecca as she jerked and writhed on the bed, and it wasn't just the random, electricity-fueled twitches of a stiff, ice-cold corpse, either. Her head was lolling around on her neck and her back was arching as if she was stretching. Her mouth was open and from the way her chest was moving Nathan knew she was breathing...

He was still staring at her when his brain and showmanship reflexes kicked in and he began singing the lyrics Ofdensen had given him: "_Arise!_ Arise from the kingdom of death, and walk the earth once again! _Arise, I command you, ARISE!"_

Skwisgaar, meanwhile, had pushed Toki aside and was going into a blistering solo which was so fast that his fingers were a blur on the frets. His picking hand, too, was a blur of ceaseless motion.

Toki picked himself up and went for a guitar on the wall and joined in. Out of the corner of his eye Nathan caught Skwisgaar shooting a death-glare at Toki as the younger man's rawly enthusiastic but undeniably sloppier playing came into the mix. Nathan grinned fiercely. The furious battle of dueling guitars that the two Scandinavians were waging against each other was only making Rebecca twitch and move even more.

Nathan growled so deeply that his throat rattled and ached. "Arise, arise from your grave! Arise from the kingdom of death! Arise from the Underworld, Inanna! Awake, o corpse! Let blood run through your veins, let your flesh be warm with life!"

There was a snapping sound from one of the amplifiers. The lights suddenly sizzled yellow-brown over their heads and a shower of bright sparks fluttered down like a fiery waterfall. Toki jumped a foot into the air, stumbled, and slammed into Murderface, who shrieked in fury and shoved the younger man away with his bass. Pickles blinked and missed a beat. Skwisgaar didn't even notice. He was still playing so fast that a fine red mist that was almost turning to steam was flying from the strings. A bloody shred of fingernail slid off the guitar's body in a thin trickle of crimson and fell to the floor, unnoticed by the Swedish virtuoso. Nathan didn't think Skwisgaar even _felt_ the pain.

Nathan himself was only peripherally aware of the chaos around him. It was like when hundreds of fans died in bloody swaths at his concerts; he didn't allow it to distract him. Instead he was staring at Rebecca, willing her to come back, willing to her to live. Willing her to-- _"AAAAARIIIISE!"_

An amp exploded in a gout of flame. Toki screamed and ran, grabbing Skwisgaar and dragging him away. Skwisgaar was still playing and barely even noticed that he was being hauled bodily across the room. The lights flared blue and then yellowed and then guttered out with a sizzle, sounding like a ton of bacon being hit with a flame-thrower. The power died completely and did not come back from the grave.

But something else did.

The automatic sprinkler system was raining down a cool shower. Nathan blinked water out of his eyes and slung his dripping hair back over his shoulder. He was utterly winded and he crouched down on his haunches for a moment and just hunkered there, shivering and panting. The water kept pattering down around him.

In the darkness, there was a slick thumping sound.

"Na--than?" A woman's voice.

He raised his head. Rebecca, but not Rebecca. It was hoarser, lower. Uncertain. Needing. _Wanting_.

_She needs me, _he thought, and that filled his heart with... well, not hate. Something else. He wasn't sure what. For the first time in their relationship, he was needed, and not just as a punching bag or someone to scream at on the Dethphone or a slave or a (literal) whipping boy. He was needed for something else.

He pushed himself up off his haunches with a grunt. "Yeah, Becky, I'm comin'." He waited for a moment to see (or rather, feel, given that he couldn't see anything) if a fist would come flying out and land somewhere on his person -- Rebecca _hated_ the nickname Becky, said it sounded like something fit for a twelve-year-old and why couldn't he treat her like an adult and didn't he respect her and if he didn't then why didn't he and on and on and on.

But nothing happened. No fist in the darkness. He sloshed towards her.

His groping fingers found the cold steel edge of the table, and then found her flesh. She was wet and clammy and shivering. She put her arms around his neck and clung to him. "Nathan."

"Ofdensen," he yelled over her shoulder. "Gimme a light and a towel."

The overheads fluttered back on, allowing Nathan to see his bride. Ofdensen handed him a towel like the ones he used on stage and he put it around her shoulders and lifted her off the table. Her little bare feet _plish_ed down into ankle-deep water (which had stopped falling) and so he picked her up again so that her toes wouldn't get cold. He dried her off. "Hey, Becky. You look... great."

And for a person who had recently been dead, she did look great. Her skin was pale blue-white, almost pearlescent in hue. Her eyes, too, were very light -- a pale blue that was almost silver. Even the pupils were a white-blue, and so light that he could hardly make them out inside the irises. _Weird. But... kinda awesome._ He touched the lank strands of her sodden golden hair, and found two thick locks of silver-white in it, one on either side of her head, right above her temples.

He pulled the spike out of her chest and she grunted but didn't flinch. So he disconnected the other prods from her back and then rubbed her spine, his fingers moving around the raw holes as if massaging them. She sighed and pressed closer to him. He was amazed and more than a little turned on. The former, living version of Rebecca had _never_ behaved like this before.

Ofdensen came up, a strange little smile on his face. The weird leather-bound book was tucked safely under his jacket. "So," he said. "It worked."

"Uh, yeah." Nathan patted Rebecca's back. "Yeah, it... did." Even he sounded a bit surprised by that.

Ofdensen's facial expression was unreadable. But then he smiled again. "Hmm."

And then he turned and walked away, humming to himself. Nathan stared.

There was a cough from behind him and Nathan turned around to look at his sodden, dripping bandmates. The water around Skwisgaar's boots was stained pink with blood. Toki came over and touched Skwisgaar's bloodied hand and said something soft in Norwegian. Skwisgaar nodded and shivered as the pain finally caught up to him. His hair hung down and he let Toki take his good hand and pull him out of the room -- probably to the hospital wing for some first-aid.

Murderface snickered. Pickles grinned at Nathan and grabbed his biceps and pumped his forearm in the air. Then he twirled his drumsticks.

Nathan nodded and carried his metal bride away.

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They ended up, unsurprisingly, back at his bedroom.

"Want some more?"

She grinned, lips puckering up. Whenever he kissed her, a bristly bit of stitching poked him in the face, but he didn't mind. He smooched her and then took up her other foot and laid it in his lap. She wriggled her toes and giggled.

"You'd better be fuckin' ready, 'cause here it comes," he warned, and then, after rubbing all the kinks and stiffness out of her foot, reached over and swirled the little makeup brush in the pot of (expensive) black nail polish. He cupped her heel in the palm of one hand, holding her foot up to the light, and squinted, with his tongue between his front teeth, while he oh-so-carefully applied a daub of ichorous paint to her little toenail. He painted it thin and neat, with all the tender carefulness of an artist, blew it dry, and then applied a second coat. "There, that little piggie's done. Now for the others. Wee-wee-wee, you little fuckers. Here I come."

Rebecca Nightrod, Living Dead Girlfriend of the most brutal necromantic heavy metal singer in existence, only giggled and wriggled her toes as Nathan continued to paint her nails an unholy shade of blacker-than-blackest-black.

_"Loving you was like loving the dead..."_

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**Author's Notes:** Okay, this contains quite a few references to different things... here they are.

Most obvious one is the Bride of Frankenstein, or in this case, the Bride of Nathan. (And if you've not seen the '80's Gothic fantasy _The Bride_, see it -- it's really good and is a very unique take on the Frankenstein mythology.)

'Nother one are the _Evil Dead_ films. Yes, that's THE Necronomicon that Charles is using. The Necronomicon is also referenced in one of the Friday the 13th films, _Jason Goes to Hell_ (the original prop shows up in the Voorhees house, implying that Jason was a Deadite).

In Sumerian mythology, Inanna was the goddess of sexual love and warfare who went down to the land of the dead and was killed there. Of course, she came back to life. Methinks it ties in nicely with the Necronomicon and also Rebecca's whole personality (Inanna was not exactly a _nice_ goddess...).

The line at the beginning is a sample from the beginning of "Living Dead Girl"; it comes from a trailer for _Lady Frankenstein_. The line at the end is from Type O Negative's classic hit, "Black Number 1". There's also another Type O reference; the "green light" surrounding Rebecca is a reference to the song "Creepy Green Light", which is about a man's lover coming back from the dead.

The song Pickles sings is "Addicted to Love" by Robert Palmer.

And that's pretty much it!


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